Jack O' Lanterns and Farewell Talks

To All of our Beloved Family!

    If we ever thought we might have a little free time now and then, that image disappeared quickly this week. It seems we have been busy every day from morning until evening with one thing or another. We got informed that the Senior Couple  for whom we had initially picked out an apartment were now again being rescheduled to come here in November instead of waiting until January. There was an apartment vacated in Munich by a couple who had been released and the mission office decided they would take all of the furnishings in this apartment and bring them to Vienna sometime during the week. 

We had some assignments for district meeting on Tuesday and all the normal preparations for a special Home Evening on Monday that kept us pretty busy for the first day of the week and followed through with a good meeting with the missionaries, feeding them after we were done with some of the extra food left over from the night before. Then we were notified that the loading truck would be here by Thursday afternoon which meant we had to make all of the purchases for bedroom furniture which were the only things not included in the other furnishings. We have become real aces at getting around IKEA without getting lost in the 45-60 minutes it usually takes and made all of the decisions of what we felt we'd need.  The president had given us an advance of what we might need and we felt pretty good  that we still had a reserve of about 300 Euros when we'd made all of our decisions.  Then we got informed that the double bed we'd chosen was felt to be inadequate for a senior couple (even though that's what we've been sleeping on for the past 17 months) and we should upgrade to a queen size bed. 

In the meantime Institute on Wednesday night went off really well with our best attendance since last summer of over 50 people in attendance. We even had about 10 people in the English class which was a new high and it included a young woman from some kind of religious study group who wanted to find out more about the LDS church and its teachings. So Thursday morning we were off early and bought the bigger bed and all the stuff that goes on it, under it and around it with our advance money coming within 8 Euros. We thought we were going to make it until they informed us there would be a 140 Euro delivery charge so we coughed up the extra money not sure how the mission was going to reimburse us without paying some high fees for a bank transfer from Munich to Highland. At the end it was all set up for delivery in a week. Then Elder Parker received a call that the van was coming into Wien so, he left his companion at the language courses while he met the office van. We were able to recruit the Zone Leaders and eventually they were joined by the elders who had finished the language courses, to offload a few thousand pounds of furniture and get it all up to a fifth floor apartment. That same day, we had arranged for the teacher of the young mothers group on Thursday morning to get a key so we wouldn't have to be there and to have Sister Parker stay around to support the Young Marrieds who now meet on Thursday nights while Elder Parker joined the moving group of elders.

As we got everything moved in pretty well, it was announced that we would have the van available to us all day Friday if necessary and we thought we might be able to save the 140 Euro delivery charge if we could pick it all up instead.  So the two senior elders made a run up to IKEA to rearrange all the financing after a phone call seemed to indicate we could pick it up if we arrived prior to their closing at 9 PM.  Everybody still with us?  

Back to IKEA where there was a bit of a line we had to wait in and by the time we had it all rearranged, we were informed that the 15 items purchased would not be ready until about noon the next day. To make a long story shorter, Sister Parker and I reunited that evening and still made it to pre-arranged apartment inspections Friday morning. Then it was off to IKEA again with the van where we loaded in the bedroom stuff. We decided we could squeeze in a quick trip to a different store to pick up a new dryer and then it was back to the apartment where the elders helped us again to bring another several hundred pounds of stuff up to the fifth floor. All done and out of there in time to only be a half hour late to the center to set up for Waffle Night!

The YSA's had decided it would be fun to do a little pre-Halloween stuff, a holiday which is steadily creeping (literally--it's sometimes a little too creepy) into Europe and so we had a Jack O' Lantern contest, forming two teams and seeing who could come up with the best rendition.  Here are the results, you decide who won:

Saturday, we had to finish our farewell talks which were given today in the ward where we first started  17 months ago. It includes many of the people we've worked closely with at the YSA Center including a couple where the husband, an ex-stake president, and his wife were called to the presidency of the Freiberg Temple. They have now been temporarily released while it's closed until next July but we're secretly hoping they'll be recalled again which might give us the opportunity to get an inside track. We'll have to talk to Heidi's parents to see how they pulled it off. At any rate, our talks seemed to be well received and gave us an opportunity to put our thoughts in order for about a month from now. We guess a farewell talk here can pretty much approximate a homecoming talk there.

    We decided yesterday that there might still be an opportunity to get to one of Sister Parker's desired but yet to be visited sightseeing spots, the Vienna Butterfly Museum.

It was pretty and very interesting and you are literally right in the middle of it all but one step inside and one becomes immediately aware that the temperature is 115 degrees with a humidity of only 99%. Within about 15 minutes we decided that this was a supreme example of Mosiah 3:27.  

Our clothing was becoming damp, our glasses were fogged up to the extreme and we wondered how butterflies ever survive in Utah. We made it through all the bridges, tunnels and intricate pathways with butterflies all over the place with strict instructions not to touch any of them, even if they're dead and certainly not to take anything out with you! We couldn't make it much longer than it took to get around everywhere and were glad to make a hasty retreat and enjoy a lovely film about the life cycle of butterflies in a wonderfully air-conditioned room!

    Refugees continue to pack into Austria on their way to wherever.  Despite next week being Fast Sunday, the Vienna Stake decided today would be a special fast day in behalf of the many refugees.  Contributions were encouraged in behalf of the humanitarian funds of the church and we felt the members were encouraged that they really could help in a significant way not only monetarily but also through their fasting and prayers.

   [Sister Parker] This really has been a busy week of running here and there and meeting all the mission needs besides taking care of the center and the young people who wish to linger longer. They really don't have another nice, homey, welcoming place to hang out and now I am more willing to stay longer with them as we all know the Parkers will be leaving soon. Some keep asking if we wouldn't like to stay longer, and of course we would on one hand for them, but on the other home is calling. Really, though they have brought us many blessings and some wonderful experiences. I pray for them as I do for my children. I pray that we may all hold on to one another and to our Savior as we go through life's ups and downs. I am also glad to have my talk over with, it was waking me up in the night thinking in German. Now I can concentrate on organizing our apartment for going home.

      Sending our HUGS and PRAYERS, 

and enjoying beautiful Autumn days and Halloween. 

Grammy and Grampa, Mom and Dad, Elder and Sister Parker

Genesis 49:1

To Our Beloved Family,

     Well, we have just finished our fourth conference in about six weeks.  The Senior Conference in Switzerland was followed by a Zone Conference in Salzburg a few days later, then the wonderful General Conference and finally, today, our last Stake Conference.  This one was something new as prior to this it has always been held in a very large rented hall where the entire stake could fit at one time. For today's conference, because they had no general authority visitor, it was decided to hold it in the stake center and beam it via the Internet to three other locations that are more distant. Two of the wards met in one other building and there were two yet more distant that had the conference transmitted to their respective buildings. One of the best speakers, however, was a brother who has been serving as the president of the Frankfurt Temple which was just closed for a couple of years for remodeling and expansion. His remarks focused on the revelations that each person can personally receive as one attends the temple to receive the needed guidance for daily living.  It was a wonderful opportunity to see many people for the last time as we just have three more Sundays to go prior to our release.

     Next week we will attend the northernmost ward where they have asked us to speak. We both think that our farewell talks to them will likely be very similar to our homecoming talks a few weeks later. Today in stake conference they asked us all to fast next week for all of the refugees who are flooding through the European Union and dedicate special offerings for that same purpose. Then the following week will be the regular fast and testimony Sunday. We're planning on attending the English speaking international ward that Sunday which is where they actually list us as full-time missionaries serving in their ward. Then the final Sunday we will be joined by our replacements, the Neugebauers. They will have joined us two days earlier and we will embark on a quick orientation as to their responsibilities and where all the ward chapels and missionary apartments are located which they will be visiting.

     It seems like we are moving through a bunch of lasts. This week instead of district meeting we had our last Zone Training which differs from a zone conference in that it just comprises the missionaries from our zone whereas the latter includes us and Salzburg zone together. The next one of those will be the Christmas Zone Conference which we expect to celebrate with all of you guys back in the states!

     Our mission president and his wife were at the Saturday night stake conference where they both bore their testimonies but we think it will be the last time we'll see them. In addition to settling our mission financial account with us they brought some wonderful little keepsakes, the mission lapel pin for Elder Parker and a similar necklace pin for Sister Parker. They already have us enrolled in the blog for former missionaries of the Alpine German Speaking Mission and it sounds like everything else from here on out may be somewhat anticlimactic. We are definitely committed, however, to not getting too trunky.

     We understand that today was the reorganization of our home stake presidency at their stake conference so we're excited to find out just who will be officially releasing us. So now, back to the other things that are keeping us busy. This week we met with a real estate agent and the landlord lady he represents (interestingly, she's a pharmacist) to sign for and receive the keys for a new apartment which will be used by a new family history couple coming in a couple of months. In the meantime it looks like we'll actually use the apartment for a few days when our replacements arrive instead of having to grab a hotel for five days. We can even store our extra luggage there while we inspect the delights of downtown Prague and Budapest prior to our actually climbing on the plane. We already have reservations in both places with the hotel in Prague coming as a freebie with some points we have saved up from our time shares.

     An interesting point regarding our visit to Budapest. Friday a week ago we were visited by the Area YSA supervisors who are headquartered in Frankfurt. They have been in the process of visiting all of the YSA senior couples in Eastern Europe and met with us on our Waffle Night. They had already been to Italy, Graz in Austria, Bratislava in Slovakia (the other half of old Czechoslovakia) and Sopron, Hungary but prior to visiting us they had also visited with the couple in Budapest, Hungary. They mentioned that they might be able to get us a reduced rate at a hotel near the church there which is available for church officials and gave us the name of the couple, which didn't ring any bells, and the hotel. Then just a few days ago we received their monthly message which they send out to everyone within their area of responsibility. That includes everyone from Scandinavia on the north and all of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and we think might even include France, Spain and England. But at any rate they had pictures of all of the recent visits they had made, including us. Lo and behold, the couple in Budapest are from Highland, Utah and we worked together in the bishopric of the Mount Mahogany Ward. So we're looking forward to having someone take us to church in Budapest. We'll be there from Saturday night until Tuesday before we leave.  Nice to have speakers of the language who are also good old friends!

     So there are still three more Institute classes to teach including one the night before our departure. We still have to inspect five more apartments before we leave and completely furnish the new apartment, especially if we expect to sleep in it for a few nights. We have to figure out how to get the gas and electricity turned on, prepare some assignments for the next district meeting and pack up a bunch of memorabilia, souvenirs, etc and get them shipped off in the next two weeks before our replacements commandeer our apartment. We understand the YSA's are going to throw a big farewell party on our last Home Evening. Should be a big farewell dinner Sister Parker gets to prepare but she should have plenty of help. She already knows what the recipe is.

    For our sightseeing adventure yesterday this is where we went: You are looking at "The House of the Sea" a huge 8 story aquarium complete with other animals like birds and monkeys that let you walk through their habitat. The building itself was an old World War II flak tower that was completed in May 1944 about a week before the D Day invasion began. It was used to spot and shoot down enemy planes but also as a type of bomb shelter which could protect as many as 45,000 people at the time of an air raid. The city decided to put it to good use after the war and the place was crowded on a Saturday afternoon with lots of families, especially many young children that really made Sister Parker homesick for her grandchildren. We don't have much left we plan to see except maybe the Butterfly House. We'll see if we can work it in.

  It really does seem strange to be doing all these things as a last time and to be hugging some people good-bye for the last time. Its one of those bitter sweet moments that stay suspended in time and which you, for ever more hold dear. But there is still quite a bit left to take care of so we can't dwell on it and will be rather busy until we leave. There is still plenty of time left to share the gospel, support our missionaries and YSA's and have some fun. Try to keep the autumn weather good until we get back. I'm still looking forward to a walk in crunchy leaves.

Thinking about you all, 

with HUGS AND PRAYERS,  

Grammy, Grampa, 

Mom, Dad, 

Elder and Sister Parker  

Time is Short--Visit the Clock Museum!

To All of the Beloved Reasons Why We're Looking Forward to Coming Home,

I guess it's pretty hard to come up with a week as good as the last one was but even so, it went pretty well. Other than Monday night when we had about 19, every other night was pushing 25-30 people in attendance. Even our language courses were reasonably well attended.

Special events were Wednesday as we really started the new Institute Year. No one had signed up to take the English speaking class so Elder Parker prepared without knowing if he'd have anyone to teach. But it turned out that with the help of a co-teacher the stake called, thinking we might not have a replacement for a month or so, and one of his assignments being to enthuse the slackers in the International Ward to start attending again. We actually had three students with the two teachers dividing up 1 1/2 apiece. But we knew all three well and so it was a good introductory lesson to the next semester. We continue to get a hard driving response from our new stake representative, the 4th year medical student who is teaching the German class on the same subject. She's going to get 49-50 people signed up for Institute by this next week or know the reason why! We get about 3-4 emails a day from her as she is expressing her efforts in a great way. Her parents were also in town this week, living in Anchorage, Alaska but here for a visit, but the mother originating here in Linz, Austria. Interestingly, one of our elders who just happened to be there was from their ward. They'd known him since he was in primary.

It was a good week for parents as our special young lady from Italy was visited by her father, a non-member, who came by on Friday night to play games and enjoy the evening with his daughter's friends. We think he was favorably impressed with the wholesome nature of her companions. While at the temple a couple of weeks ago we picked up a 500 piece  jig saw puzzle depicting the children of the world visiting with the Savior in a painting by Greg Olson. We thought it was pretty cute and actually started putting it together last Monday night. But it got a little too late to finish so Elder Parker finished it up on Tuesday. He then decided to take the whole thing apart and see if anyone might be interested to try again on Friday. Result: We had a cute young returned missionary sister from Hungary who apparently has a passion for jig saw puzzles and she couldn't stop until we were done. It was almost midnight before we got out of there!

We naturally slept in a little on our P day but decided it was definitely the time to finally see the Vienna Clock Museum. To hear them tell it, Vienna was the clock making capital of the world back in the 1700's, though they had the actual clock mechanisms of clocks that went back a couple of hundred years earlier. They even had the original works of the clock in the tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral, the focus of the heart of Vienna, which hasn't had a clock since the early 1900's.This was Elder Parker's favorite 

You're looking at a pocket sun dial, the absolute ultimate for the traveling man!    

And then of course there's the ultimate cuckoo clock.  The picture doesn't do it justice as it was about three feet across and four feet high!

   Sunday was, of course, Fast and Testimony Meeting and we had a lovely meeting at the ward we'd picked out to be one of our last such opportunities to bear our testimony of the truthfulness of what we are engaged in. That evening we had a Visitor's Evening at the center, pretty well attended at which all of the Vienna missionaries were present along with a good selection of people from around the stake and even a couple of investigators.

  

   So here are the details about our return. We will arrive on United Airlines flight 5483 at 6:58 PM on the 18th of November at Salt Lake City International Airport. We have a two hour layover in Denver following up from a two hour layover in Frankfurt. All are invited to the house for Thanksgiving dinner on the 26th with the homecoming addresses scheduled for the 29th. We'll figure out a way to put up any out of towners that want to come.

    [Sister Parker] I can't believe we are thinking on Thanksgiving and Homecoming, but whatever, it is true that we are visiting our wards here in Vienna for the last time. Even though we haven't gotten to know very many members closely, there are always a few that we have personally connected with. This ward has a sweet, friendly spirit and it is hard to say good-bye. I think our young adults are also thinking on our leaving and seem to be hanging out longer and longer in the evenings. But here again it is a joy to be with them, and it tugs at my heart. I find myself trying to cook their favorites. I think my favorite thing this week was attending the couples institute class on Thursday, as there was only one person and Ester asked if I would join. The lessons are on Jesus Christ and His Everlasting Gospel. It is interesting that being on a mission helps you see so clearly the purpose of life and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to change peoples lives for the better. Cherish your testimonies and continually nurture them.

    Looking forward to coming home next month, but trying not to think on it too much and to finish up what we would like to complete here. Its also getting colder and time to put on those heavy winter coats. Temperatures the next couple of days are from 47 degrees down to 32 degrees 

HUGS AND BLESSINGS,

Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker

Can a Week Get Any Better?

To Our Beloved Family!

We don't know how a week can get any better than this one! Just getting back from the Senior Conference in Switzerland, having spent last Sunday in Salzburg, we fell right into a tremendous home evening night on Monday with investigators almost equaling the number of YSA's present. We had not anticipated that anyone was going to show up with a Spiritual thought so thought we'd just pull it together earlier that day. But Sister Parker got heavily involved in fixing the meal for the evening and Elder Parker was needed to joint teach with the Sisters as they were teaching a young man . Just before all that started, a young man walked in indicating he frequently walked by the building and today felt motivated that he should come in to get some questions answered. Turned out he was an ex-member who had been baptized as a teenager and been more or less active for a few years before completely dropping out and eventually having his name removed from the records of the church. Now he was engaged and felt oppressed with a heavy weight over him, seeking the answers to the questions of life. A couple of elders and Elder Parker were talking with him when all of us had to break for our scheduled appointments. But he elected to hang around, talked with Sister Parker in the interim until we all returned and by then many of the YSA's had started showing up. In short, there was no time to prepare a Spiritual thought, so we decided it was time to let the Spirit do the preparing. Elder Parker was impressed to start talking about covenants and everyone participated just wonderfully as we talked about the nature of contracts, then baptism, then the Sacrament, then the difference between a civil marriage being two way and an eternal marriage being a three-way covenant. Our ex-member was an active participant in the discussion and admitted his interest in the marriage covenant now that he was engaged.
  

After the formal discussion ended he got into further discussions with one of the members who is a returned missionary and ended up asking if he could receive a blessing. When asked if he wanted just a blessing or whether we should administer to him, he wondered if non-members could be administered to. We assured him they could and the two of us provided a blessing which ended up with everyone in tears. The Spirit was definitely present. Elder Parker even got the chance to use his new vial for consecrated oil purchased at the Swiss Temple a few days earlier, having lost his original at the outset of the mission when his briefcase containing the original was stolen. 

   
We'll see where all of this goes but it was a great start to a week that moved on to our latest Zone Conference back in Salzburg. This time we were able to make the trek back on the train, plenty of refugees still around but not really a problem as long as we weren't planning on trying to leave Austria. The conference was supposed to begin at 10 AM and end at 4 PM but it turned out the extra hour in the morning was to allow all the missionaries to receive their flu shots. Seniors were given the option and we decided to bypass the honor if it wasn't required. But then the conference went until 5, we missed our originally scheduled train and the one that followed by about 4 minutes so ended up not getting home until after 9:30. But the day was another spiritual feast with President and Sister Kohler in their prime. They had us all prepped to give 7-10 minute talks on three different subjects and then asked a Golden (remember that's the mission name for a Greenie) to give one of the talks with the other two also being excellent.

Friday for Waffle Night we had prepared for our usual 14-16 attendees and were pleased to get a total of 23, six of whom again were investigators. Everyone was having a good time and we ended up staying way too late with a couple of our favorite YSA's who helped us start putting together a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle of a painting by Greg Olson on the Children of the World being taught by the Savior. This we had purchased in Switzerland. Luckily we got home before the streetcars stopped running but slept in on Saturday. When we finally got up it was a good opportunity to do a thorough clean of the apartment which had been neglected a little in the previous weeks.

The major event of the weekend was obviously General Conference but the rebroadcast of the Women's Session from the previous week didn't start until 4 PM and the live Saturday morning session didn't start for us until 6 PM. Sister Parker decided she would watch the Women's Session Sunday morning while Elder Parker went to the taped session of General Priesthood meeting so that gave us a little bit of time on Saturday to walk around a few blocks in the immediate neighborhood of the center which we had never done thus far in a year of being here. Within two blocks of where we mostly hang out we found the oldest preserved baking oven in Vienna, now a restaurant, a palace which had been, temporarily, the home of the Vienna Choir Boys, the church where Beethoven had laid after his death prior to his burial and wonder of wonders, the Peoples Museum which just happened to have free admission that day because it was the "Long Night of Museums" in the city.

Earlier we had been guided into a hidden-away courtyard showing how the poorer people had lived during the middle ages and then found out that the People's Museum contained many artifacts from about the same time, probably the 1600-1700's.

This was a particularly fascinating find hanging on a wall behind some table tapestries which indicated that "The  most beautiful thing the world around is a home that's built on firm ground" (Better rhyme in German but it's close). But we found the all-seeing eye and the clasped hands below it to be of extreme interest.

     That led us directly into General Conference. We were able to see three sessions live, Saturday and Sunday morning sessions and by staying up until midnight Sunday,also the closing session. The Women's, Priesthood and Saturday afternoon sessions we got on tape delay although we did stay up late Saturday night long enough to witness and participate live in the sustaining of Elders Rasband, Stevenson, and Renlund, all of whose testimonies we witnessed when they were given Sunday morning. No question that this was a superlative conference. We loved the talk from Elder Anderson, and especially moving were the talks from Elder Holland and President Nelson on the divine nature of motherhood and womanhood.

       [Sister Parker] It seems our missionary life is packed full of many wonderful experiences. At first the days were kind of slow but now they come and go so quickly that I have to pause a moment to enjoy what we are engaged in. Everything and everyone has become so dear that even now some of our young adults are emotional about our leaving even though it is a month away.  It is too bad that at the beginning we do not feel as competent as we do now in accomplishing our purpose as senior missionaries. I hope we have or will have accomplished all the Lord has sent us here to do and touched the lives of those people with whom we were suppose to connect. Fortunately or not there are also many challenges that fit into the scheme of things and hopefully we have grown and gained new insights in ourselves, our church family, and the gospel.

       I came to conference looking for a respite from the evils of the world we pass through every day and found the "Fount of many Blessings," and so sweet was the spirit. It was a joy to be with all the missionaries, members and investigators and to drink from the fountain and to drink again and again, and to be filled. I wish it would last forever, but I guess we have to wait for that in Heaven. I came away feeling that we all needed to evaluate how the gospel is really working in our lives, to seek for greater companionship of the Holy Ghost and to strengthen our families. Then in doing this, we can show others the way to a better life through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, how I love the Savior. I hope you were also strengthened and your little ones with you. May the Spirit always guide us through our daily cares.

With great love for you all,
HUGS AND PRAYERS,
Grammy, Grampa, Mom, Dad, Elder and Sister Parker